The Islanders will hope to attempt to win back to back games in what seems like forever as they battle the Coyotes tonight. Returning to the lineup tonight is Brain Strait and as a result Matt Carkner will be scratched and Radek Martinek was placed on injured reserves with a back related injury. Also joining Carkner in the press box will be Peter Regin and Ryan Strome.
Islander head coach Jack Capuano wants to get more practices in for Strome and I would fully expect him to be ready to go on Saturday. Now I know this is as unpopular move that the team has made. Ryan Strome is the shiny new toy that you know you are getting for Christmas and I totally understand that fans want to him to play as soon as possible and the anticipation is driving the fan base nuts.
While I probably would have started Strome tonight, I am not at practice. This could also mean that there are significant line changes and they want a few more days of practices to get these lines going. I honestly think this is a fair hockey decision made by the team. Playing center is hard; look at Peter Regin he is a center and he can’t do the job effectively. The Islanders play again this Saturday and if Strome isn’t making his debut against 6 thousand Montreal fans at the Coliseum then you can get concerned. I just ask the fan base to just to take a breath and relax. Even though I know how the reaction to that statement will go as you can read the comments on here as I get shredded for this opinion.
As for the game tonight Kevin Poulin is in net and Evgeni Nabokov has been activated from injured reserves. I would expect that Anders Nilsson will be on his way back to Bridgeport when the team returns home tomorrow morning. As always for more on all things hockey please feel free to yell at me on Twitter and Instagram at @DanDanNoodles78.